Conventionally, proposed as an image forming apparatus is the one, for example, that forms a toner image with a toner as an image carrier in an image forming part, carries a sheet as a medium by a carrying part, has the toner image transferred to the sheet in a transfer part, and fuses it by applying heat and a pressure to this sheet, thereby printing an image.
Among these, the image forming part is configured in a freely detachable manner from the chassis of the image forming apparatus, and there is one where a toner cartridge containing the toner to be consumed is attached to a development unit incorporating a consumable photosensitive drum, etc. for example.
As this image forming part, that is, the development unit and the toner cartridge, there is one incorporating a memory part that stores and updates information for judging compatible models, managing the degree of consumption, etc. Also, among image forming apparatuses, there is one that utilizes wireless communication for exchanging information with this memory part.
For example, the image forming apparatus can incorporate a small wireless tag that is a combination of the memory part and the wireless communication part into each of the development unit and the toner cartridge and perform wireless communication with an antenna incorporated in the image forming apparatus side to read or update information stored in each wireless tag.
Also, among the image forming apparatuses, proposed is the one that disposes the wireless tag of the development unit and the wireless tag of the toner cartridge partially overlap with each other and performs wireless communication between one antenna of the image forming apparatus side and both of the wireless tags to suppress the number of necessary antennas to the minimum (see Patent Document 1 for example).